The Open University
Yorkshire Region

Cultural Studies Research Forum
Reports and Abstracts 1995 -2000

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The Horrible Party : the wall painting of Herod's Feast and the Coronation of the Virgin at Pickering church, North Yorkshire

Anne Marshall

Among the many 15th century wall paintings in Pickering church is a large panel depicting these two subjects, the latter inset off-centre within the former. This paper tries to establish reasons for the odd (probably unique) juxtaposition and what it might tell us about the meaning of the whole. Herod's Feast is shown, following a convention becoming slightly old-fashioned by the mid-century date of the paintings, as a series of episodes all taking place within the same space without regard to time, but telling the story from John the Baptist's rebuke to Herod, through Salome's dance and request to her father, to John's decapitation.

The calm and devotional Coronation of the Virgin, a piece of doctrine or pious belief which in the later Middle Ages signals the highest point reached by Marian veneration, is in sharp contrast to the bloodthirsty scene below. Something is clearly being said about Mary's perfection as against the greedy sexuality of Salome and her mother Herodias. These two provide, I think, a better and darker foil to the Virgin's pristine uniqueness than the more usual figure of Eve, and the Pickering artist is as keen as more celebrated painters to take advantage of that. Additional context is provided by the extraordinary popularity of John's decapitated head, reproduced on artefacts ranging from rood-screens to alabaster plaques. Two medieval churches in England are dedicated simply to the saint's head - certainly the only example known to me of a bodypart thus honoured.